HUNDREDS of patients camped overnight outside a Welsh dental surgery in a desperate attempt to register for NHS treatment.

Staff at the Carmarthen practice were offered bribes by patients, some of whom had travelled from dozens of miles away, to get on to its list.

But yesterday more than half of the 600-strong queue for the 300 NHS places on offer at the Brynteg Dental Practice in Carmarthen were turned away.

Most now face an increasingly desperate and uncertain search for another dentist willing to take on NHS patients.

Staff at the practice said patients started queueing along Mansel Street in Carmarthen at 11.30pm on Sunday in a bid to be one of the 300 lucky ones to receive a ticket allowing them to register for NHS dentistry.

The scarcity of NHS dentistry in Wales has reached crisis point, with large numbers of patients throughout the country chasing fewer and fewer places.

The Carmarthen practice, which already has 6,000 patients on its books, has just recruited another dentist who was willing to take on 300 extra patients in addition to her existing patients.

Practice manager Heather Davies said, "The situation is really at the lowest it can be. New dentists are few and far between. We expected a lot of people, but not the amount we have seen. I was amazed when I arrived for work in the morning.

"When we got to 300 we just couldn't accept any more and people were disappointed, but if we took the 301st person then we would have had to take them all.

"We've had people trying to bribe us to get on the list, people crying, and we've had to deal with some awkward patients fed up with standing in a queue."

Steve Acworth, who travelled from Aberaeron, yesterday morning, said the queues were like those seen in a Third World country.

The 56-year-old has been unable to register with an NHS dentist since moving to Wales from Kent five years ago.

"It's got to the point now where every crown I?ve got has fallen out and three quarters of my mouth is now gums," he said.

"It doesn't seem very likely that I'll find an NHS dentist."

Cath Jones, who lives in Carmarthen, joined the queue outside the Brynteg Dental Practice at lunchtime yesterday in the hope of registering her 24-year-old daughter Angharad for NHS treatment.

"The queue didn't move and I was told by someone in it that people had been there since 3.30 in the morning," she said. "I've now rung NHS Direct Wales and told them the problem, but they said no one is taking on NHS patients here. The nearest is Brecon."

The shortage of NHS dentists has been a long-standing problem in rural areas and the lack of provision is being compounded by the retirement of older dentists who have traditionally taken NHS patients.

Dentists are reluctant to take on NHS work because they must see a conveyor belt of NHS patients to break even. The rewards for work in the private sector are higher.

Llanelli and Dinefwr Community Health Council chief officer Martin Morris said last night that he would be raising the problem of the shortage of NHS dentists with the National Assembly.

"It was totally shocking to see for myself the number of people standing in what can only be described as a breadline, queueing for NHS dentist treatment," he said.

"We will now ask the National Assembly to examine this issue quickly, but I don't hold out great hope that much can be done about it in the short term.

"However, we can't see hundreds of people standing on the street and hope that the problem will go away. We must do something about it."

A spokeswoman for NHS Direct Wales said there were three other practices in the Carmarthenshire area on the organisation's database currently accepting NHS patients.

A practice in Ammanford was taking NHS patients within a 10-mile radius, a practice in Llanelli was taking all NHS patients and a practice in Llandybie was accepting only new patients with a relative already registered.

An Assembly spokeswoman said, "The Welsh Assembly Government has launched the dental initiative as an all-Wales programme which has been very successful in attracting new dentists into those parts of Wales where they have been most needed.

"As far as West Wales is concerned this has resulted in new surgeries in Pembroke Dock, St Clears, Milford Haven and Saundersfoot, and we have agreed in principle to provide funding for additional services in Tenby and Milford Haven.

"The initiative was established because we recognise that patients in certain parts of Wales continue to experience difficulty finding an NHS dentist.

"It offers financial assistance to dentists who are willing to make a sustained commitment to the NHS and who are prepared to establish new practices or expand existing practices in designated areas.

"Carmarthen was designated as an area in need of grant-aided assistance and as a direct result of the incentives offered a dentist in Carmarthenshire was able to extend the practice, resulting in further NHS patients being able to register."